Tehran and world powers reach solutions on Iran nuclear program

Iran and international powers have reached “solutions on key parameters” of Tehran’s nuclear program following eight-day talks in Switzerland, according to a joint statement issued by the negotiators on Thursday.

During the media
conference EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said the
deal achieved as a result of the talks
creates the basis of a future comprehensive nuclear agreement
between Iran and six powers which is to be concluded by a June 30
deadline.

The agreement envisages
the Fordow facility being converted into a nuclear physics center
with no fissile material. It was agreed that the Natantz facility
would remain as the only uranium enrichment complex in the
country. Under the deal Tehran was obliged to refrain from
creating nuclear weapons.

"An international joint venture will assist Iran in
redesigning and rebuilding a modernized Heavy Water Research
Reactor in Arak that will not produce weapons grade plutonium.
There will be no reprocessing and the spent fuel will be
exported," according to the joint statement.

US and EU are to lift Iran sanctions after the signing of the
deal on June 30 and after IAEA verification, said Iran's Foreign
Minister Javad Zarif.

“The EU will terminate the implementation of all
nuclear-related economic and financial sanctions and the US will
cease the application of all nuclear-related secondary economic
and financial sanctions, simultaneously with the IAEA-verified
implementation by Iran of its key nuclear commitments,” the
joint statement said.

“The results are encouraging and this agreement serves a
political framework that identifies the most pressing points: the
problem of enrichment, nuclear energy development and research,
the issues of transparency and full control of the IAEA for the
implementation of agreement,” Lavrov told journalists in the
Kyrgyzstan capital Bishkek. “In return sanctions on Iran will
be lifted,” he added.

UN Security Council resolutions on Iran will be also terminated
under the future comprehensive deal, Zarif added.

“It will be an end to all UN resolutions against Iran,”
Zarif said clarifying the exact numbers of the documents – from
1696 to 1929.

“Iran and the US relations have nothing to do with
this,” said Zarif answering a reporter’s question on the
strained relations between the two countries. “We have built
mutual mistrust in the past,” he said adding the he hopes
“some of that mistrust could be remedied” through the
implementation of the nuclear agreement.

Big day: #EU, P5+1, and
#Iran
now have parameters to resolve major issues on nuclear program.
Back to work soon on a final deal.

“We have discussed a reciprocal mechanism” if there is a
“material breach” or significant “incompliance”
with the agreement, he said. “The elaborate mechanism will
not allow excuses,” he added.

IAEA Director General, Yukiya Amano, has welcomed the framework
nuclear deal saying that his agency “will be ready to fulfill
its role in verifying the implementation of nuclear related
measures, once the agreement is finalized.”

Iranian President Hassan
Rouhani earlier said on Twitter that drafting of the agreement is
to start immediately, with a June 30 deadline for finishing the
process.

“Found solutions. Ready to
start drafting immediately,” Zarif wrote on his Twitter ahead
of the press conference on the results of the talks in
Switzerland on Thursday.

German Foreign Minister
Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who has also stayed in Switzerland, said
that the framework deal with Iran is a “big, decisive step
forward.”

The deal would help the security situation in the Middle East,
partly because Tehran would now be able to take more active part
in efforts to solve conflicts in the region, the Russian Foreign
Ministry said in a statement on Thursday.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said that the agreement brokered
in Lausanne could “enable all countries to cooperate urgently
to deal with the many serious security challenges they
face.”

Speaking at the White House on Thursday, US President Barack
Obama said that a historic deal has been reached
over Iran's nuclear deal. He said the deal is based not on trust,
but on "unprecedented verification" and called it
"the best deal by far."

US Secretary of State John Kerry welcomed the deal by saying that
a political understanding has been reached and it is a solid
foundation for “good deal we are seeking” between Iran
and world powers.

France’s Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said that the framework
agreement with Iran is a “positive step”, but questions
and details still need to be resolved.

Solutions on key parameters of Iran #nuclear
case reached. Drafting to start immediately, to finish by June
30th. #IranTalks

Israel voiced discontent on Thursday calling the deal detached
from reality adding that it continues to oppose any nuclear
program in Iran.

“The smiles in Lausanne are detached from wretched reality in
which Iran refuses to make any concessions on the nuclear issue
and continues to threaten Israel and all other countries in the
Middle East,” Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz said
in a statement after the announcements. “We will continue
with our efforts to explain and persuade the world in hopes of
preventing a bad (final) agreement.”

The group of countries
known as “P5+1” – the US, Russia, China, Britain, France and
Germany – have been trying hammer out an accord with Iran to
restrict the country’s nuclear program in return for a lifting
the economic blockade imposed by the UN for nearly 18
months.

The talks in the Swiss city of Lausanne finished on their eighth
day on Thursday.

The talks are a big step forward towards rapprochement between
Washington and Tehran, who have had uneasy relations since Iran’s
1979 revolution.

However, the White House has been criticized by the
Republican-led Congress over the Iran talks. In March, Israeli PM
Benjamin Netanyahu was invited to address Congress without White
House approval, and blasted the talks in his speech continuing on
his mission to derail a much sought-after agreement with Iran.

The Israeli PM, who is implacably opposed to a nuclear Tehran,
has in the recent past tried to involve the US Congress to impede
a diplomatic solution offered by the P5+1 negotiations. Following
his visit to Washington, 47 Republican senators signed a letter
written by Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton, which threatened to pull
any nuclear deal reached with Iran, once President Barack Obama
leaves office.

While Israel has never publicly admitted to having a nuclear
arsenal, maintaining the policy of “nuclear ambiguity,”
it is widely believed to be the only power possessing the atomic
bomb in the Middle East.

International Law Professor at Georgetown University Daoud
Khairallah believes that the deal engenders trust between Iran
and the rest of the world and that it will help create an
environment for rational peaceful problem solving in the Middle
East.

Khairallah also criticized Israel for hypocrisy on the nuclear
issue.

“They had made an environment of tension based on vilifying
Iran and creating in Iran a scarecrow and a nuclear threat to the
whole world. Whereas Israel sits on a huge pile of nuclear
weapons.”